


Prince's Quest

by jalendavi_lady



Category: King's Quest (ADGI Remakes), King's Quest (Video Games)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Magic, Parent-Child Relationship, Royalty Who Do Things, Siblings, Twins
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-17
Updated: 2018-07-17
Packaged: 2019-06-11 21:48:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 7,610
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15325074
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jalendavi_lady/pseuds/jalendavi_lady
Summary: What would happen if the events and objects of the three ADGI game remakes played out through the rest of the series?Alexander returns to Daventry with written proof of conspiracy against the royal family in his pack and a working understanding of how important exact wording is for magic in his head. With one of the Father's three curses yet to be triggered, they're going on offense.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This fic presumes the maximum possible amount of retained objects and particularly paper by Graham in the remake of KQII and Alexander in KQIII Redux, as well as that both read anything and everything they could even when they didn't get to keep the written item itself through end-of-game.

Gwydion's mind was reeling as he sat in the unfamiliar chair. The reality that seat cushions existed was the least of it.

He still smelled of smoke and fried dragon.

If it hadn't been for the dragon and the lingering fires across Daventry, he would have still been trying to warm up his feet and fingers after the long trek through the mountains.

He hadn't had a chance to bathe even to his own limited standards in any real way since a stream he'd come across on the walk back to the boat on Seran's Island. That had only been a few snatched minutes because he'd wanted the worst of the hold's odors off him, and still hadn't really gotten any of it out of his clothes.

Which he hadn't been able to change. He was still in the same threadbare no longer rag-worthy clothes he'd left Manannan's house in. There had been no reason for the pirates to offer him even their castoffs. The wizard's clothing hadn't fit when he'd tried, and it had been longer than usual since he'd been granted anything himself.

The thought of why made him shudder.

He was out of place and understandably ignored as the mother he'd just met worried over the father he'd just met whenever the royal healers would let her close and a servant rushed in to tell them that the sister he'd just met was off on an adventure through a magic mirror to try to save his father.

After the past month of his life -- no, it had been less than a month -- since he'd discovered that note in a drawer and realized he was living in the shadow of fatal certainty instead of mortal peril, he was exhausted. He'd used up everything he'd made in the wizard's lab except for the teleportation stone and it wouldn't help any now unless he wanted to flee outright from his problems. Whatever reserves Rosella had found to draw on, Gwydion didn't have any left to use.

It was only mid-day, the sun high in the sky, and he knew there was no way he was going to be able to sleep even if that was offered. It had never been safe to sleep during daylight when Manannan was around, he had only managed in the pirate ship because it was dark under the deck, and there were far too many people around here. If he did drop off, he'd just jerk awake again the first time anyone sounded the least bit like Manannan. The few times he'd been too sick to stir, Manannan had pushed past his own paranoia enough to magically treat the illness and he'd been back to cooking and cleaning by midday.

He had to last until sunset. Then he could sleep.

Except with a twin sister in another country who knew how far away going through her own ordeal, he probably couldn't. He had no way of knowing and nothing to compare the situation to. For all he knew, just the residual emotions of finally meeting his birth family after so long thinking them all dead would have kept him up anyway.

His mother was saying something. Then she repeated it, louder.

And then she left her husband's bedside and was worriedly leaning over him. "Alexander, why didn't you respond?" she asked with a hand on his forehead.

_Oh._ Maybe he should be surprised he hadn't fallen over yet. Manannan would have had him hanging from the kitchen rafters if he hadn't responded like that. Even if the Oracle was the only person who'd even called him Alexander before today. He hadn't dared take the risk with the pirates even before he knew they were pirates. The letter had been warning enough that keeping a low profile until he was in Daventry was safest.

"I grew up under another name, I only heard my real one within the past month, I kept using the name I was used to while I was traveling, and so far you're the first person who's expected me to respond to it. I'm sorry that I worried you." The rambling let him know he was even more sleep-deprived than he'd thought. "I'm used to being Gwydion."

She hugged him.

That was another thing that was going to take getting used to -- the idea that physical contact could be positive instead of at best neutral. He'd hugged her earlier and his father as well, but that had significantly been a way to make sure they were really there. And he'd been standing as far away as he could without losing the ability to lean in far enough. It hadn't been this purely affectionate gesture.

Maybe Manannan had been right after he'd been turned into a cat and Gwydion really wasn't going to be able to adjust into being a prince. Seventeen years 'a pauper' as Manannan put it -- or a slave as Gwydion knew he had clearly been even if the wizard had never used the term -- was long enough for training and experiences he might never get over.

He was having trouble sitting without wobbling by the time she let go.

"When did you sleep last?"

"Yesterday night, still on the ship, and not well. I had to keep moving once I made landfall. I've walked from the shore on the far side of the mountains since this morning."

"Then we need to get you to a bed, too."

"I probably can't sleep in daylight," he stammered. "Not in a building this busy. I'll startle awake."

He wondered for a moment if he should be using a more formal sort of language with her, except he doubted he knew language formal enough.

_She's your mother,_ he reminded himself. _And here, you're the heir to the throne. Not a slave. Informal language will do. She knows you aren't used to this._

She looked concerned.

He shook his head. "Doesn't matter why now. I'll talk after Rosella's back and Father's out of danger."

"Alexander..."

"You're already worrying enough as it is. What happened to me is in the past now." He met her eyes. "And I'm not leaving him."

He thought after he'd said it that he should be at least a bit differential to her, but it didn't matter that she was a queen, he just couldn't do that without going back into full groveling. That mental space was the last place he needed to be right now.

She thought for a moment, then smiled weakly. "Scoot your chair closer to the bed, maybe it will help if he knows you're near."

And by closer she meant so close he could lean over onto the edge of his father's pillow as he held the king's hand if he wanted to. His father even stirred enough for Gwydion to be absolutely sure he recognized who was staying with him and approved of the arrangement, flexing his fingers enough that Gwydion knew he did want his hand held.

He closed his eyes for a moment, finally resting them after the glare of all the fires that had still been lingering on the land as he and Rosella walked to the castle and clinging to what was left of the father he hadn't been allowed to know before today.

 


	2. Chapter 2

The next thing Gwydion knew, his head was on the edge of the pillow, dried spit was uncomfortably crusted at the corner of his mouth, and the sun was beginning to set. And the queen was gently shaking his shoulder. "You both need to eat something," she told them softly.

There was one thing about food that Gwydion had already learned from experience the hard way before leaving Manannan's house for the last time. "I've been eating rough for long enough that I'm not going to be able to keep down anything rich, even by peasant standards," he told her.

Without, of course, letting her know that was years instead of weeks.

Or that he'd thrown up the last of Manannan's larder when his first non-scrap meat was more than he could handle. It had smelled so good, and for the first time in his life he was allowed...

He'd had salt pork since, on the pirate ship, but not much. Not as much as crew. Just enough for them to consider him fed enough to sell for a reasonable price in the next kingdom over from Daventry. It was basically only enough to flavor porridge.

Porridge. Common. The same all over. And something his father might be fit enough to still swallow.

"I didn't eat this morning," Gwydion told her hurriedly, caught up in his own logic. "Do royals do porridge? Because that might be..."

"...the best option for both of you." She gave his shoulder a squeeze and went into the hallway to order some people around.

It was very hard for Gwydion to convince himself that he should not go out to her and be ordered around the castle with the rest of the menial help.

When she came back in, Gwydion's mind was still in problem-solving mode and he'd learned during his escape from Manannan to follow his mind when it started working like this. "You both mentioned a curse, up on the battlement. And that my going missing as a baby was involved."

"Please don't make me speak of it now."

"Mother, if this is connected... I had to escape an evil wizard through my own sneakiness, and I've spent enough years around him before that to understand some of how their logic works. Wording matters."

"It was a trifold curse. At least one member of the family being in mortal peril was the first stage. I hoped you coming home and saving your sister meant it had been canceled."

"It wasn't. We've each been in genuine mortal danger at least once in the past month. The curse didn't include death, so it was fulfilled when the peril started. No canceling needed to prevent us from dying. What was the second?"

"Your father's heart slowing, in response to another spell," she murmured, probably trying to keep her husband from hearing.

It didn't work. The king's eyelids fluttered slightly.

"Specifically the word slowing?"

She nodded.

"It didn't say stopping. The precise wording has been fulfilled, so it's all over but waiting for the curse's results to complete. He could be perfectly fine by tomorrow night without any of us needing to find a way to break or cancel out that curse."

She looked at him oddly. He realized his father had managed to get his eyes open and keep them that way. He was watching Gwydion as well.

The intensity of the attention was unfamiliar and unsettling.

"Whatever Rosella's gone to do may work. Or this may be something survivable and we just haven't realized it. But you can still pull through without fighting against the curse, Father. You just have to fight to survive. Whatever magic was involved, it's done its work now. Keep your hopes up as long as you can."

The king's eyes brightened slightly. His fingers twitched against Gwydion's hand.

And then a wave of pain crossed his face and he withdrew into himself again.

"The third?"

"That my heirs won't reign over Daventry," the king whispered with the pain leaking into every syllable.

_ Oh dear. _

"Then make sure you survive, so we have plenty of time to plan around that one," Gwydion quipped with false levity. "But there's got to be some way to make that work as not meaning either Rosella or I has to be seriously harmed. Even just marrying out of country could be enough. Given the damage to the countryside was healed last night, marriage ties to Daventry may be in high demand diplomatically soon. At least from what I know."

Then the porridge came with apologies for how very plain it needed to be for the king. 'Very plain' for a king was twice as nice as anything Gwydion had ever had.

Warm and fed better than he had been since he was an infant, Gwydion found himself slumping toward the edge of the pillow again. With one last bit of clear thought, he kicked the sack of his possessions from under his chair to under the king's bed so it would be even harder for anyone to rustle through it while he slept.

His parents did not need to find out what the peril he'd truly faced under the curse was, not right now. There was enough for them to worry over as it was between the king and his sister.


	3. Chapter 3

When he woke again, he was horrified to discover it was nearly dawn. Rosella had not returned.

And their father was still weakening.

"Alexander," he gasped.

"You need to save your strength," he remarked as he leaned very close.

"You've been… away. Regent… your mother… three years. Twenty-one."

"Worst case, I have three years under a regent to find a way? Until I turn twenty-one? And it's my mother and not anyone who'd harm me to gain the throne themselves?"

A weak nod.

"Rosella will be back in time." He gave his father's hand a squeeze. "I know it, somehow."

Only she didn't come.

Not as dawn began to brighten the sky.

Not as the king requested the priest come to provide final spiritual preparation for his death, in case his time truly was near.

Not as he weakly motioned his wife and long-lost son close, told them he loved them and his daughter, and said no more to save his strength for the sheer effort of staying alive.

The sun rose.

The king's breathing slowed and shallowed. Gwydion doubted he could speak again if he tried. He'd stopped opening his eyes. It was only little flashes of expression at his lips that made Gwydion think he was still conscious.

The end approached.

Rosella ran in, carrying something not entirely unlike an apple and their father's adventurer's hat. "He needs to eat this. It's magical."

In the shocked stillness after the fruit had cured him and he reclaimed his hat at Rosella's insistence, the king smiled at Gwydion. "You were right."

Gwydion felt himself blush. He was fairly sure it was the first time anyone had ever said that to him, and certainly with that much approval in their voice.

"Second curse completed," Gwydion responded to his father's statement. "Now to brace for the third. With years to do so in."

And with that Rosella demanded to be let in on the secret of the trifold curse. He was certain the fact she has been trying to get the secret for years unsuccessfully but her brother had managed in his first attempt was the reason she wasn't the least bit polite about it.

"If nothing else, we could marry away," she proposed after thinking for a few minutes. "All we have to do is leave the line of succession."

Gwydion had to hold in a laugh that they had each immediately come to the same solution. It felt strange having anything to laugh about, but Manannan's training meant he could hold it in regardless.

"There's been at least once before that an heir to the throne married onto another kingdom's throne and was excluded from the succession as a result. I know we've got more open rules of succession -- Grantithor's legacy -- than most countries in this part of the world, so when heirs marry it's Daventry that defers." Rosella seemed to consider something. "That nearly happened to me by force last night. Being married out of succession, I mean."

And then she had to explain the whole nasty business with Lolotte and Edgar. Including the haunted mansion, zombies, mummy, forced engagement, unintentional murder, and informal proposal on Genesta's beach.

"And I know I should have been nicer when he asked, but I needed to get home as quickly as possible. And I didn't know him at all, besides knowing he wasn't willing to be part of a forced marriage."

"Which kingdom did you say you were taken to, again?" Gwydion asked.

"Tamir."

"I grew up on the other side of that mountain range. Both lands are now without an evil sorcerer who has been controlling local politics for years. Rosella's fairy friend Genesta is going to need more help than just Edgar to deal with Tamir effectively, and no one is looking after Llewdor. Manannan didn't let anyone become a clear secondary power."

The king got up and paced. "Then this would be a good time to establish diplomatic contact with both lands. With our own fields restored thanks to that gree orb, we're in a good position relative to them. And they aren't so far away that a connection isn't valuable. We don't have any buffering allies in that direction - Kolyma's in the other direction entirely."

"Llewdor wasn't that bad off. Not in terms of food, at least. But they haven't had a teacher in fifty years and the library's closed because hardly anyone can read the books. Manannan mostly just wanted control. Any problems in town he claimed were just because the townspeople didn't have a clue about how to live correctly, not because there was a wizard in charge who didn't care what happened so long as he could judge them for it. Even the temporary placement of a few teachers and a librarian could shift their opinions favorably toward Daventry."

Which made the vials of hair in the wizard's bedroom drawers make sick sense. They were trophies of lives that had been in his complete control.

"And you're sure he's gone?" his father asked.

"He was turned into a cat. I doubt there's a way to turn him back, and he'd need another person to do it. With his own wand that worked the magic gone and on a different continent."

At last, that switched everyone's attention away from Rosella.

He eased the bag from under the bed with his foot as his father asked him what his life had been like.

"I was never allowed to leave his mountain overlooking Llewdor. I was barely allowed to look down there from a distance. I wasn't allowed to have anything that might be magically useful, down to fly wings. He told me I was an orphan named Gwydion and had me working as his house slave the moment I was big enough to handle a broom." He dug through his meager personal possessions. "I found this letter in a desk drawer the week before I turned 18. I now have some suspicions as to the author."

He held it out to his father.

"You can read?" his mother asked him frankly.

Gwydion shrugged, keeping an eye on his father in anticipation. "Enough to be able to make sense of recipes and jar labels in the kitchen. Better than most of the others in Llewdor since there wasn't a teacher anymore. It was useful to Manannan for me to be at minimum marginally literate. A few books he'd occasionally permit access to. Mostly about cooking and cleaning."

The king got to the last of the first page, blanched whiter than he had been the previous night, and stumbled over to sit on the bed.

"Father?" Rosella asked in fear.

"I've just had a bit of a shock, is all." He hurriedly finished the letter and passed it over to the queen.

"Hagatha had kin?" she asked almost immediately.

"Apparently," the king answered her dryly. "This seems to have been personal."

She kept reading and practically fainted when she got to that horrible statement.

Stillness in the room. Rosella looking confused.

She lowered the letter. "How many others?"

Gwydion pulled out the wretched piece of paper his predecessor had found and written of. He'd searched the house for it before he left. "I'm not listed and the one before me isn't either, and the one before him doesn't have a death date marked. He was the one who found it and apparently Manannan didn't locate it after that so there were no updates. I found it flattened in a recipe book Manannan didn't like very much, tucked into the index. I think he meant it to be a more obvious clue. He left a journal of his last days in the closed library - he'd tried to buy his way out on a ship but bandits stole the money at the last minute. Another of us played the lute up until he was killed, in part I'm guessing for the same reason. The bar owner found his lute lying on the ground with the smell of ash in the air. The lute player was the one before me. People in town still remembered him and that lute was part of my way out."

Rosella snatched the letter from their mother, read, and practically knocked Gwydion over hugging him.

And then she looked at the letter again, and finished it. "This handwriting seems familiar… oh. I know where I've seen it before. There was a note in Edgar's room from Lolotte. That distinctive way the lowercase t is formed, that's all her. If she was in the same range of mountains, then this has to be from her."

Meanwhile, their parents were quietly conversing. Something about a quiet corner of the courtyard gardens near a particularly beloved tree.

"So, that's both of them gone, and good riddance," Rosella announced frankly.

"Rosella!" Her mother sounded scandalized.

"Well, Manannan can reform himself if he wishes as a good mouser for some farming family, and Lolotte was so morally tainted that feeling love could kill her. Honestly, she wanted Pandora's Box just so she could possess something that evil. I know death is a wicked thing to celebrate, but…"

Her father nodded grimly. "And contacting Tamir at the least is an excellent idea."

"May I send a letter to Edgar, letting him know I returned in time to help you?"

"I was actually going to request it. Particularly given you had to be rougher in your haste than would normally be appropriate for someone of your rank being courted by someone of his. Just don't mention what Lolotte said about him in that letter. His position is tied to his inheritance from her."

She nodded. "He seemed nice enough. I don't want to think too hard about how he's taking her death, since it wouldn't have happened if he hadn't set me free. It's just that 'refuses to marry a forced bride' is a low standard for a man to reach and a day is a mighty short time to observe someone before thinking about that."

Their parents shared a knowing smile. Gwydion had a sudden feeling their courtship had been at least that short.

"And now we have to have a celebratory feast, since you are both home and safe and your father is well and the land is healed."

Gwydion's stomach tried to roll over and play dead. If he couldn't handle a single normal serving of meat, how was he going to handle a royal feast?

"And since we have so many things other than Alexander's return to celebrate, maybe no one will notice if he keeps to simpler fare," their father continued for her. "And it will take such time to plan and cook that he will have some time to adjust before he's expected to eat in front of anyone but family."

Gwydion nodded, comforted that they were playing around with what he supposed were the normal realities of a royal court to protect him.

"Didn't you even get cleaned up?" his father suddenly asked.

He shrugged. "I wouldn't leave. After everything, I needed to be here. And... um... I'm not exactly used to being clean." He blushed. "I guess there's a lot I'll need to get used to."


	4. Chapter 4

By the time of the feast, Gwydion's stomach had decided meat beyond scraps for flavor wasn't dangerous so long as it was appropriately cooked and the initial diplomatic team to establish contact with Tamir was under sail and expected to return before first frost.

Therefore it was an enjoyable experience, even if he was still having problems answering to his birth name. Thinking of himself as 'Alexander' in his mind was still impossible.

It didn't help that Rosella had taken to calling him "Gwyd" in private. As she put it, they were twins and would have had nicknames for each other since their earliest words, only they hadn't. She'd used the formal for him as soon as she could say it. And since he refused to answer to Alex or Al, not intentionally but he just couldn't remember to respond to them, he was stuck.

He managed to not make a fool of himself and on the whole the rumors a week later as reported by the royal tailor were that he was adjusting to Daventry life faster than anyone had expected.

"And I certainly did not expect you to be gaining weight so quickly, young man," the joking followed the serious observation. "Not that I'm complaining about letting the seams out, I'd rather do this than still be worrying about if your ribs could show through the cloth."

"Mother thinks I've got one last growth spurt in me," he warned with a laugh.

"At your age, most men do, even the ones lucky enough to have never known hunger. You're already as tall as the king, even starved. But then so is your mother, so if you take after her…"

Gwydion nodded. "Who knows how tall I could end up."

"And now you'll have the chance to find out," was the quiet answer.

The fact he'd escaped being secretly marked for death had leaked before the feast. He suspected it had been done intentionally, to keep him from having to completely guard against alluding to it at the table. He was learning that his father would do things like that if he felt a need.

He was also learning to trust his father's political sense, even as the older man was letting him try to negotiate a way through the curse.

Even when that meant trusting him in the warded castle magical laboratory deep in the foundations under the eye of the royal mage with Manannan's old wand, to give him a fair bit more experience with magical logic.

As the mage put it, ivory wands tended to not like evil, Manannan had likely committed theft or murder for it, and the fact he kept it locked up outside the lab he used it in and did most of his everyday work wandless said something potent about the relationship between mage and wand. Meanwhile, Gwydion had dusted its cabinet regularly, used it with good intent, and kept it as safe as he could during his journey. 'Wands are like pets' and he'd accidentally befriended this one. The mage might be one of the least powerful to ever serve the royal family, but he claimed even he could tell the wand's loyalty belonged to Gwydion. At the very least he ought to learn enough to let it protect him the next time he needed magical aid.

The only spell he'd used in Llewdor that he repeated was the one to listen to animals. Obtaining the components did no harm and they were easy to collect, being nothing but natural harmless shedding from three kinds of animals and fish scales set aside by the cooks. After the second time he did it, the resident birds seemed to catch on that he was listening and passed along rumors they'd heard along with molted feathers they didn't need for their nests. He started doing the spell once a week, with permission and supervision, just to establish that he valued the news, even if what was important to them was much different from what was important to humans or dwarves or similar species.

He even started trying to talk back to some of them, to the birds' amusement at his horrible whistling. He quickly became certain that he could only ever have a hope at being passably fluent in Duck and gave up the project for the time being.

After the second month, the snakes in the forest picked up on what he was doing and started shedding their skins in more obvious places. They didn't have much news to pass along, but even just not having to hunt for freshly shed snake skins through the entire forest was a great help.

Not long after the feast, the rumor spread through the birds that the gulls had seen two ships on the horizon.


	5. Chapter 5

Rosella looked perplexed and irritated as she and Gwydion watched the ship come in from the battlements. They were sitting with a telescope perched in an arrow slot so no one could see them below or from the port but they could see everything that was going on.

"What?"

"Edgar's here. I can see him on deck. He wasn't supposed to come here, he's supposed to put Tamir back together now that Lolotte's gone."

"Maybe that fairy you spoke about is handling all that. She was the one with actual experience. And higher rank."

"He's still supposed to be ruling the mainland portion."

Gwydion shrugged. "Father left Daventry as a king without heirs to save Mother from the tower. Who knows what urgency couldn't be handled by a letter back?"

That turned out to be exactly what had happened. Edgar gave a perfectly lovely (at least in Gwydion's judgment) cursory apology in public and more extensive one in private later on with no one but the royal family present for 'washing up on your shore' so soon after being spurned. Twice.

"But I've been going through my mother's things as much as I've dared," he explained to them where no one else would hear, "and speech is less easily intercepted than the written word. I found a few things it would be best if your family knew. And would be best if your enemies did not know you knew."

"Edgar, knowing you came here could give them that idea anyway." Rosella smirked as she said it.

"Ah, but it is already well known that I am attracted to you, nearly got married to you outside of normal propriety, and attempted to win your hand in a more conventional but still inadequate way soon after that was called off. Clearly I am not thinking clearly and have used the tiniest bit of official contact between our governments as an excuse to win your hand and your parents' approval. And as such a hopeless romantic will not cease to travel between our lands until I succeed in winning a chance to court you or, as the peasants say these days in Tamir," -- he switched from lovelorn affectation to normal tones -- "'get a clue'. Which means you can grump all you want publicly to make it seem like I'm not helping your family out in your dealings with dark magic, just trying to win a wife. It'll just make me seem more tragic the more you play it up."

Rosella smiled and Edgar blushed.

Gwydion laughed. He could hardly wait to start plotting with the other young man.

"And your current intentions are…" King Graham asked him in a manner that stressed the fact they were talking about a princess, not a minor one at that, and a man who'd nearly been her forced husband.

"I'm not currently personally seeking to marry. Given how much work I've had to put into figuring out who am without my mother ordering me around, I don’t have any business seeking to marry yet. If I were seeking to marry, I would go through the proper channels I did not understand when I last parted from your daughter, whether the woman I courted was your daughter or any other. And the forced wedding was entirely my mother's idea. I didn't agree with it at the time, not beyond trying not to get hurt. I did what I could to get her away safely and unarmed." He took a deep breath. "Which means I'd be quietly talking to you first, as her father the king, and never putting her on the spot like that again."

* * *

It turned out that Rosella was not the least obvious family connection to get information back and forth from Edgar.

It was Gwydion.

Two young men, nearly the same age, recovering from overbearing authority figures. Two young men, sure that the people who had raised them had stolen them from the families they should have known, even if one of them didn't know where he'd come from. Two young men, grown in households where magic was regularly practiced and with the basic potential themselves.

It was amazing how few people were willing to be anywhere near a magical lab when they knew two half-trained youngsters not intending to make a profession of any magical art were experimenting under the eye of a retired lesser combat mage on the other side of that door. And the royal mage was familiar enough with the Black Cloaks by reputation that Gwydion was sure he wanted one of them to try something.

Just so he could turn one of them into an ash pile. More likely die trying, Gwydion knew, but it was the principle of the thing.

There was a memorial now in the royal gardens, dedicated to the other Gwydions, listing what dates they knew with empty space for the dates they didn't. The royal mage had done the spellwork for the eternal flame atop it himself with his hands shaking with grief. Alexander's bedchamber windows faced it and the light kept the dark at bay all through the night.

It meant they didn't have to light a single candle when Edgar came over one night during each of his visits to plot. Or, as they both described to the guards instead, 'study session until we yawn too much and can we bother you for a guest cot?'

Meaning no one knew exactly when they went to bed and no one had a reason to suspect they didn't actually go to sleep at all once they were there.

Gwydion had, after all, personally retained the letter from Lolotte in his own possessions about his time with Manannan. That the letter existed was not known outside the family, nor that its contents mentioned Edgar. As far as Daventry was concerned, it was finding the journal that had alerted Gwydion to the danger he was in.

"So, she may not in fact be my blood kin," Edgar whispered to the ceiling. "I had always assumed she was, an aunt who had taken me in young enough to claim I was her own or something like that. Even when I had my own suspicions about her not being my birth mother."

"Your position depends on maintaining that fiction," Gwydion cautioned.

"Oh of course it does. And her recognition of me as her son makes things legally so, in any case, and Genesta likes me enough to count that as my claim without challenge. But it does feel nice to know there's doubt I could have biologically inherited any of her failings. Of course it's possible by raising, and we all know she tried, but just having that bit of doubt…"

"I can't imagine what it would have been like if I'd ever thought I was actually related to Manannan. I just thought he was a crotchety old wizard who'd taken in an orphan, and I'd been taught to believe every other orphan in the world had it worse."

"Which would make eighteen the obvious time for such a young man to strike out to find his own fortune." Edgar held a hand up to the light from the window.

"Hmm. Didn't quite think of it that way. It's not like he ever actually taught me Llewdor's laws about minority and majority."

"He was making sure they never mattered. And that no one who was inclined to do anything ever found out. If even Lolotte didn't know you were King Graham's son…"

"Then maybe none of the other Black Cloaks did either."

Edgar yawned. "One can always hope."


	6. Chapter 6

Edgar was in and out of Daventry for the next few years, to the point that King Graham formally assigned guest quarters for his sole use until such privilege was rescinded.

There was even a private understanding between Gwydion and his parents that none of them had a clear objection to Edgar as an individual if Edgar should try proposing for a third time. Their father was keeping quiet what the situation on the political side was, but Gwydion thought the guest quarters and access to the royal mage said more than enough on that count.

Edgar joined Gwydion in understanding animals through spellwork a few times, and much to Gwydion's private horror proved a good enough whistler to pick up the basics of several bird languages that were not Duck. It balanced out, though, because Gwydion turned out to be the natural at making music with actual instruments.

The world fell into a pleasant pattern of visits, music, getting to know his sister, tutoring in all the things he'd never learned and needed to, and trying to come to terms with the past and threats to his future.

And then, one bright summer day when Edgar had surprised them all while King Graham was out for a walk and most of the kingdom including the castle staff were celebrating a peasant festival in the meadows over the nearest rise, everything changed forever.

A jolt of magic that made him fall to the ground retching. He could barely process that his sister, mother, and Edgar were doing the same nearby.

Then he passed out.

* * *

"We should have researched that family." Gwydion wished he could kick himself, but he was under enough physical threat as it was without hurting himself intentionally. "I knew Manannan had a brother years ago. We had time."

"I kept my ears open and heard nothing," Edgar reminded him. "Nothing in Lolotte's papers gave anything but initials and basic descriptions of anyone, and Manannan's private papers were gone by the time Genesta got over there to look. If he hadn't already incinerated letters nearly as soon as they were received. And I'm the best source you had."

Gwydion's mother nodded sadly. "I'm sorry you got tangled up in all this with us. If you had come even an hour later..."

He shrugged. "I'm up to my eyeballs anyway. If this wasn't happening now, it would be something similarly nasty in a few years. It's not like I've even tried to seem harmless."

Rosella laid a hand on his arm. "That doesn't matter. You didn't have to get this deeply involved."

She didn't see the look Edgar gave her the next time she looked away, but Gwydion did.

Gwydion leaned back. "So. We are in a reinforced glass jar and all the physical comforts of home came with us. Manannan and Hagatha's brother Mordack put us here and may I just state their parents had a very strange taste in names. The warded lab stayed behind in the foundations, along with the wand that was once Manannan's, and none of us have the first clue about wandless spellwork. We are all about 8 inches tall. And I had the misfortune to turn Manannan into a _carnivore_." He sighed. "On the plus side, Father wasn't caught up in this. For whatever good that does us, since he's never directly gone face to face against a mage."

"Your father can be very resourceful."

"Pardon me, your highness, but this is going to take magic," Edgar told her. "I doubt the spellwork that shrunk us will automatically expire or have a simple solution."

"He knows how to contact Genesta," Rosella reminded him. "We have allies."

"Considering she won't agree to undo all enchantments on me instead of just layering new ones on top of the old?" he muttered darkly.

"What?" Rosella seemed more disturbed than Gwydion would have thought.

He shrugged. "We know from the letter than Lolotte stole me at worst and adopted me at best. The family resemblance was spellwork or chance, and it's only evil witches who turn that shade of green so that much must have been an enchantment at the very least. I know the royal house of Daventry has had a magical emerald since King Graham's courtship of Queen Valanice." He nodded toward the queen. "I wouldn't even have to hold it for it to work. It's gotten to me that I don't know what I'm like under all this."

"Genesta knows you were going to make the request?" the queen asked.

"She counseled against it, but she says it's my choice and we made sure she'd have proof I'm me when I get back."

"This was the reason for your sudden unannounced visit?" Alexander asked slyly.

Pieces were coming together, even as he was trying to logic through how to survive their captivity. Edgar's sudden intensified need to visibly be whoever he really was. The way he was looking at Rosella when she couldn't see. The fact he didn't seem to care that his fate was now linked to theirs.

_He came to ask our father for permission to propose,_ Gwydion suddenly realized. _And since he promised to go through proper channels, he can't tell her._

"That and I came across a few things in Lolotte's papers that made me want to look through the royal archives of Daventry."

"The archives followed us here, if you think the pursuit currently worthy of your time." There was darkness in the queen's voice that made it clear to Gwydion she meant 'worthy of your last days'.

Edgar looked determined. "If I'm going to die because a thousand-year-old malignancy on the face of the world has a vendetta against my friends, I want to know who and why if there's the least chance I can."

"I can't help with that," Gwydion told him softly. "I'm the one he's bringing in and out of the jar. He could find out what you're up to if I'm near the archives. For you, it would just be passing the time until the end reading."

Edgar nodded. "And you need to look like you might be trying to find a solution to the enchantment." He grinned. "Too bad for them that he doesn't know about that emerald. That's the one thing that I can think of that might work."

Rosella brightened. "Could it help us now?"

"No," Gwydion told her as flatly as he could. "That jar around us isn't enchanted and we don't know how strong it is. And we don't have any sunlight. And even if we weren't shrunk, we've got no means of defending ourselves from him. Our best chance is help arriving from outside before it's too late."

* * *

Trying to pretend he was frantically looking for a solution meant spending a lot of time alone. There was no other way to manage it.

Gwydion being off on his own distracted Mordack from what Edgar was up to and let his mother and sister hide as well as they could.

He spent a lot of time up on top of the battlements with what few magical tomes were in the normal castle library, researching.

If Mordack was going to believe Gwydion didn't know how to restore Manannan from his new feline form, which was the best stalling tactic they had available, then Gwydion needed to act like he thought the answer was probably out there.

* * *

Mordack's deadline had nearly been met when the queen pulled Gwydion very close and whispered in his ear, "It's not that you don't know or don't want to, is it?"

He shook his head. He whispered back, "According to the book I got the spell from, it's irreversible. Manannan ought to already know. It was his book." He thought for a second. "Then again, the last page of the spell had been missing from the book for over thirty years."

She pulled back and looked around. Rosella and Edgar were well out of earshot, talking quietly together. "Was he going to propose?" she asked quietly.

"He hasn't said anything, but I'm fairly sure he would be anyway if Father were here. He promised he'd follow all the rules of propriety if there was a next time."

She sighed. "I'd let him use the emerald myself if we had access to direct sunlight. It's still here. At the very least, he could have that."

"If it undid the shrinking enchantment, that could kill us all."

There was a sound like some demonic bell in the sky, three times in quick succession. And then the voice, clearly meant to be a whisper only to the room beyond the jar, from the glass wall closest to them. "Take heart, help is coming."

And then silence.

Gwydion's mother raised one dignified eyebrow.

"She's a scullery maid Mordack makes clean the house. Stolen like I was, only she was old enough to remember. I suspect she's the girl child from that letter Father remembered finding so long ago. She's been told the only way out is to marry him. She's decided she'd rather die and every day is only making her resolve stronger."

Anger in his mother's eyes.

"We've talked in secret as best as we could while she was cleaning the outside of the jar and the table around it. I trust her. And if we can find a way to escape..."

"We need to take her with us."


End file.
